HOW MANDARINSTARS SPECIALISED LEARNING PROGRAMME HELPS CHILDREN WITH DYSLEXIA
Has your child been diagnosed with dyslexia? Or perhaps just struggling to learn Chinese. For many parents in Singapore, this can be very frustrating especially since we ourselves may lack the proficiency or time to help our children ourselves.
Getting the right help and support for students with dyslexia can be a real challenge. Students struggle to cope, especially in mainstream MOE schools, where class sizes of 30~40 students makes it a real challenge for teachers to focus attention on students with special learning needs.
That’s where MandarinStars comes in to plug the gap. We have a team of specialised learning educators and child pyschologists with the necessary skillsets and experience to create a very customised learning environment with specialised teaching methods and curriculum.
WHY IS MANDARINSTARS MORE EFFECTIVE AT HELPING STUDENTS WITH DYSLEXIA
The best kind of learning happens in a very engaging environment. For students with dyslexia, we use research-proven methods to engage students, with touch, sight, sound and action, to help students acquire and retain the Chinese characters.
WHAT MAKES MANDARINSTARS UNIQUE?
Along with tailored Chinese programmes based on the Ministry of Education (MOE) syllabus, our in-house child psychologist offers classroom management support to teachers and advises on syllabus development. Our teaching methods are evidence-based and we’re always looking to update our curriculum based on the latest academic research. Based on the science — and our years of working with children with dyslexia — our teaching approach is informed by the following principles:
Individualised learning — Effective teaching first requires understanding each child’s unique learning challenges. This is why our first step begins with a psychological assessment. After assessing the child’s needs, we adapt our teaching methods and materials to help them meet their learning goals.
Scaffolded and bite-sized learning — Compared to traditional teaching methods, scaffolding breaks learning into chunks to make skills easier for children with dyslexia to master. This helps learners to maintain focus and results in faster learning, especially as students progress through lessons without feeling overwhelmed.
Structured literacy and multisensory teaching — This systematic teaching method provides students with a solid foundation of the core linguistic skills needed to identify and decode words. To improve lesson retention, we make use of proven techniques like multisensory teaching which combines hearing, sight, movement and touch with classroom instruction.
Improving student wellness and their relationship to learning — Many children with dyslexia develop anxiety around studying. By challenging but not overwhelming students, we aim to instil confidence and a passion for learning.
WHO TEACHES MANDARINSTARS DYSLEXIA INTERVENTION PROGRAMME?
Our dyslexia learning programme is developed and taught by a team of curriculum writers, child psychologists and special needs teachers. On average, our specialists have 10 years of experience teaching children with learning difficulties.
The team is led by Ms Frances Yeo, a highly experienced child psychologist. Under her guidance, the team works closely together to create teaching materials and to adapt our dyslexia intervention programmes for each student. This allows our teachers to tailor lessons to your child’s needs and to create educational material that feels relevant to their interests.
IS MANDARINSTARS RIGHT FOR YOUR CHILD?
Our programme has helped many children with dyslexia overcome their learning conditions. In another one of our articles, we share a success story of how one of our therapists helped one such student thrive in mainstream school. The article also unpacks how dyslexia affected this student’s learning ability, and we provide specifics on the strategies that enabled his academic success.
Read How Jayden Was Able to Succeed Despite His Dyslexia Challenges
